It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life...

to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years...

to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart.

And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul.
This is real religion. This is real worship.Robert G. Ingersoll

While utterly discarding all creeds,there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men...Robert G. Ingersoll

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it. There is nobody in the commonwealth of learning who does not profess himself a lover of truth: and there is not a rational creature that would not take it amiss to be thought otherwise of. And yet, for all this, one may truly say, that there are very few lovers of truth, for truth's sake, even amongst those who persuade themselves that they are so.John Locke

For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men's opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.

At least, those who have not thoroughly examined to the bottom all their own tenets, must confess they are unfit to prescribe to others; and are unreasonable in imposing that as truth on other men's belief, which they themselves have not searched into, nor weighed the arguments of probability, on which they should receive or reject it.

Those who have fairly and truly examined, and are thereby got past doubt in all the doctrines they profess and govern themselves by, would have a juster pretence to require others to follow them: but these are so few in number, and find so little reason to be magisterial in their opinions, that nothing insolent and imperious is to be expected from them: and there is reason to think, that, if men were better instructed themselves, they would be less imposing on others.John Locke

For it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come.John Locke

Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is unjust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever is able to make you absurd is able to make you unjust. If the God-given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God-given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world.Voltaire

Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once.Voltaire

Dover BeachMatthew Arnold

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

About Me

I think that meditative and inspiring thoughts and words have the power to start a fire in a person's life. It can alter the way we see ourselves. It can change the way we see the world.
It dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind; it calls to us, like the wild geese, as Mary Oliver would say, from an open sky. It is a magical art, and always has been -- a making of language spells designed to open our eyes, open our doors and welcome us into a bigger world, one of possibilities we may never have dared to dream of.
I’ve found that the best way to reconnect with how beautiful life can be is to give something away. It doesn’t have to be anything material. It can be a compliment, a smile, or a positive intention or thought for someone else. Sometimes the greatest gift you can give is sincerely giving your presence.
symphonyforlove@gmail.com

This is my symphony

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich;
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages,with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently,
await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony.WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING.

The language of Beauty

It’s amazing to me how when I stop
the incessant mental chatter, and
actually just see things, I am
blown away by how beautiful they are.
The trees swaying, the leaves blowing
around on the ground, the waves
crashing on the shore. The simplest
of things have the most profound beauty.

My task which I am trying to achieve is,by
the power of the written word, to make you
hear, to make you feel — it is, before all,
to make you see. That — and no more, and
it is everything.
If I succeed, you shall find there according
to your deserts: encouragement, consolation,
fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps,
also that glimpse of truth for which you
have forgotten to ask.Joseph Conrad

Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature,
brings back the freshness of youthful feelings,
reviews the relish of simple pleasures, keeps
unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime
of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our
interest in human mature, by vivid delineations of
its tenderest and softest feelings, and through
the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps
faith to lay hold on the future life. William Ellery Channing

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day. Emily Dickinson

Better than a thousand
Hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand
Hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.

Better than a hundred
Hollow lines
Is one line of the law, Bringing peace.
It is better to conquer yourself
Than to win a thousand battles;
Then the victory is yours.Buddha

I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights;
and you have yours.

But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love,
belong to all of us, in all times and in all places.

Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions
in their universality.H. A. Overstreet

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume and where thieves
break in and steal, but lay up for yourself
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust
consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.Jesus

Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were
a bird I would fly about the earth seeking
the successive autumns.George Eliot

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He who would learn to fly one day
must first learn to stand and walk
and run and climb and dance;
one cannot fly into flying.Friedrich Nietzsche